Butterfly-like BiVO₄: Synthesis and Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

Monoclinic-structured BiVO₄ microcrystals with butterfly-like morphology were synthesized with alcoho-hydrothermal method. Compared with irregular morphologies BiVO₄, the butterfly-like BiVO₄ possessed higher surface area and lower energy band gap, which is conducive to promote the rapid adsorption of organic pollutants on the surface of BiVO₄ and absorb the light with lower energy. Photocatalysis experiment results showed that the degradation efficiency of the butterfly-like BiVO₄ for degradation MO solution is far higher than irregular morphologies BiVO₄. It indicates the excellent photocatalytic activity of the butterfly-like BiVO₄ may be related to its special morphology, high surface area, and low band gap energy.

Keywords:

• monoclinic BiVO₄
• morphology
• high surface area
• photocatalytic activity

Funding

This work was supported by the Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (J10LD10) and Promotive research fund for excellent young and middle- aged scientists of Shandong Province (BS2010CL022). The BiVO₄ sample was supplied by the Display and Lighting Phosphor Bank at Pukyong National University.